Secrets of Grindea Preview - It Just Makes Me So Very Happy...

It’s difficult to write something special about a game like Secrets of Grindea when not only do the
developers do a fantastic job of informing their fans of what’s going on with
their game (via their dev blog), but is still in heavy development. That being said, something Pixel Ferrets
cannot do, despite their apparent ability to create something magical, is
properly relay the feelings that one encounters while playing their game. They
can try as they wish to convey these feelings, but this is something which can
only be acquired through personal experience.

Some people love their fighting games; others have an
undying addiction to outsmarting their opponents in strategy titles, but me? I have
an unending love for RPGs of all shapes and sizes. The game that broke my RPG
cherry, so to speak, was Final Fantasy IX.
I didn't get to spend nearly as much time with it as I would have liked to, but
from the moment I stumbled through the streets of Alexandria as the adorable
Vivi, I knew that this was something I wanted more of. The fantastical worlds,
exciting combat and engaging stories immediately pulled me in, and it was a
great time to be an RPG fan. Within the few years following my encounter with Final Fantasy IX, I got my hands on
wonderful titles like Fable and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Those
two games in particular ate up every waking hour of my life, sparking a love in
my heart which cannot be properly relayed with mere words.

(I’m getting to the point, just hang in there…)

To continue using Fable
and Elder Scrolls as an example, it
didn’t take long for even these franchises to grow stale. Fable II was a decent title, though Fable III might as well not even exist. Despite the masses apparent
love for Skyrim, it fails in a number
of ways and adds up to little more than an ‘ocean with the depth of a puddle’.
The genre that I spent years falling deeper and deeper in love with was slowly
but surely declining in quality. At this point, I’ve pretty much become
disillusioned with games as a whole in many ways. Sometimes a title pokes
its head around the corner and reminds me of that love that I once had for the
RPG experience, like Dishonored or
The Witcher 2, but despite their
brilliance they weren't able to bring back that seemingly unending spark of
love for RPGs. That being said, they came pretty damn close.

It is here that we finally move past my nice little rant and
get to the point…

To put it simply, even though it is still in closed beta,
under heavy development and only has about 4 or 5 hours of playable content, Secrets of Grindea has already gone a
long way towards rekindling that flame I keep mentioning. If someone came up to
me and said that the first hours of a game which is not even close to be
finished left such a profound impression upon them, I’d say that they’re being
silly. I’m sure that as you read this you might just be saying that very same
thing, but that’s exactly what I got from this game. It doesn’t make any damn
sense but this game made me feel as though I was once again a child taking a
journey through foreign territory and I loved every minute of it.

Secrets of Grindea
is attempting to bring back the wonder behind video games that people
experienced back in the early 90’s with titles like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Secret of Mana. In fact, Pixel Ferrets is aiming to take the
formula behind those legendary titles and not only perfect it, but take it to a
whole new level. That’s not an easy feat, to say the least. Once all is said and
done, Secrets of Grindea will act as
the ultimate love letter to the 2D RPGs of our childhood.

Everything that you’d want to see in a title like this is
going to be there. You have a massive, dense world filled with life, a combat
system which (even at this early stage) is chock full of variety, an engaging story line
and, on top of it all, it is a beautiful sight to look at. If Pixel Ferrets
continue on this path, Secrets of Grindea is going to turn out to be the must
play RPG of next year.

To get an in depth look at what Secrets of Grindea is all about, be sure to check out Pixel Ferrets weekly dev blog and follow them on Facebook.

If you'd like to get a chance at entering the closed beta, follow the instructions at the bottom of the page here!